The tiny Italian island of Giglio has requested "at least" 80
million euros (£68 million) as compensation for the impact of the Costa
Concordia disaster.

The request was made on Monday by lawyers representing the council of the island, part of an unspoilt archipelago off the coast of Tuscany.

The giant cruise ship smashed into rocks off the island and keeled over in shallow water on the night of Jan 13, 2012, with the loss of 32 lives.

Alessandro Maria Lecci, a lawyer acting for the island, said Giglio would be seeking the compensation from Costa Cruises, the owners of the Concordia, and that it could increase once the ship is refloated and towed away for scrap in the next few months.

The island was entitled to the money for the "grave damage" it had suffered from the disaster, including a decline in tourism, Mr Lecci told a court in Grosseto, Tuscany, during the first of several preliminary hearings which will be held over the next few weeks.

Giglio had undergone "irreparable damage to its identity, to its tourist vocation and to its image, which is forever destined to be associated with this tragic event", lawyers said in a submission.

The lives of islanders had been "completely turned upside down" by the disaster, the submission said.

Prosecutors want Francesco Schettino, the former captain of the cruise liner, to be sent to trial for manslaughter, abandoning ship and causing a shipwreck.

If convicted he could face up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors also want to put on trial five other officers on charges ranging from manslaughter to failure to cooperate with maritime authorities.

A lawyer for Capt Schettino denied that he had caused the shipwreck through recklessness or negligence.

"This was an accident at work. You cannot criminalise a man because he had an accident while working," said Francesco Pepe.

The captain had been made a scapegoat for failings that went up the chain of command.

"Schettino made the mistake of relying too much on the management of Costa Cruises," Mr Pepe said.

Lawyers for Costa Cruises argued that the firm should be allowed to seek damages.

"Apart from the victims, Costa is the one that suffered the most damage. We lost a 500-million-euro ship," Marco De Luca, one of the legal team, told the court.

Costa Cruises, part of the US-based Carnival Corp cruise ship giant, accepted a one million euro fine last week during plea bargaining which exempted it from a criminal trial, but not from civil lawsuits.